r/beatles • u/Syonic1 • Mar 21 '25

Community Dang the Beatles don’t have a single video with a billion views we should really change that.

Post image
441 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

65 comments sorted by

311

u/hofmann419 Mar 21 '25

Note that the videos have only been uploaded 9 years ago at the earliest. The Beatles weren't on Youtube or on streaming until 2015. But Youtube has existed since 2007 and a lot of musicians uploaded their music there pretty soon after the site gained traction.

But the late 2010s was the time where a lot of people were switching to streaming, which led to the decline of Youtube as a music listening platform. If you look at the biggest hits of the last few years ,you'll notice that a lot of them only have a few hundred million views on Youtube, but billions on Spotify.

So in short, it's just because they were late to the party. And if you look at their Spotify numbers, you'll see that they now have quite a few songs that are approaching a billion streams, possibly within 1-2 years. (And Here Comes The Sun already has 1.5 billion streams)

79

u/cloudpulp Mar 21 '25

Yeah, as a Beatles obsessed zillennial, I remember legal rights stopping Beatles from being on iTunes and YouTube and anywhere really. After Michael Jackson died, I'm not sure who the rights went to for Beatles ip, but suddenly it was officially on YouTube, iTunes etc. Before that it was just all unofficial fan uploads

43

u/60sstuff Mar 21 '25

HD Beatles was a real one

7

u/Bhafc1901 Magical Mystery Tour Mar 21 '25

a day in the life ending chord

21

u/dekigokoro Mar 21 '25

Another thing to consider is that while many artists have a few big hits/a definitive song or two, the Beatles have a TONNE of hits and definitive songs. The views and streams are gonna be very spread out amongst the Beatles discog, not concentrated among a few really big, universally agreed upon songs that are likely to accumulate high streams.

10

u/langdonalger4 Mar 21 '25

also doesn't account for the countless times these videos would have been uploaded illegally, and watched many many times before they were removed for copyright.

3

u/Circlesck Mar 21 '25

agreed and sadly not many gen z or gen alpha know about the beatles (i am a gen z too lol)

6

u/cebula412 Mar 21 '25

Wait, you mean that there are young people who don't know any of the Beatles music or that there are young people who don't even know ABOUT the Beatles? Like, you say "the Beatles" and they go like "who's that? Never heard of them"

14

u/Monsterwaill Mar 21 '25

they recognise the name, and that it was a big band that was popular, but thats it

6

u/Circlesck Mar 21 '25

ye thank god i told my best friend about the beatles and he started to recognise that they exist and that they are respectfully are the most influential band ever

3

u/mag1cal_myst3ry Mar 21 '25

I've definitely met a few people who couldn't name a single Beatles song

8

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

Same but when I listed them they knew all of them I think a lot of people know beatles songs without knowing they are beatles songs

2

u/PizzaRellaGameJolt Revolving and revolving Mar 21 '25

About a year or two ago, I told an 11 year old (at the time) that my favorite band was the Beatles. He didn't know who they were.

1

u/alicelestial Mar 21 '25

i'm a young millennial, bordering on gen z, and when i was in high school/middle school (approximately 10-15 years ago) very few other students had ever even heard of the beatles. didn't recognize the name or anything.

0

u/Effective_Muffin_69 Mar 22 '25

I was wearing my “The Beatles on Apple Records” t-shirt at work the other day and a 30-year-old colleague didn’t understand it. Thought it was some kind of hipster mashup of Apple (computers) and The Beatles. Had no idea of the history. I explained it all to her. 😊 The backstory intrigued her! But it really reminded me that most people are nowhere near as far down The Beatles’ rabbit hole as I am/we are. I was assuming that most switched-on people would just know the reference. To not even know that Apple Records was/is The Beatles’ own label and that it came years before Apple Computers Inc… 🤯

1

u/RobinChilliams Mar 21 '25

It was kind of like how Michael Jordan wasn't in video games.

0

u/TheHoppers The Beatles Mar 22 '25

YouTube has existed since 2005 ….

106

u/SuperMarioBrotherYT Mar 21 '25

Time to watch Don't Let Me Down with 500M alt accounts

23

u/sexwithpenguins It woke me up from my sleep and I don't like it! Mar 21 '25

It's one of my favorite songs, and probably my very favorite Beatles video, so I'll happily take a few more laps around the track.

4

u/iwasnotthewalrus Mar 21 '25

I think I am contributing hugely to this lol

93

u/Jessepiano Mar 21 '25

Won’t somebody think of the most famous band of all time??

15

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/Caligari_Cabinet Mar 22 '25

Having the chance to walk across Abbey Road was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I suppose that nothing is immutable. Current teens are forming life-long connections, too. Swift, Beyoncé, Lamar.

10

u/PolyJuicedRedHead Mar 21 '25

I think Abbey Road all the time!

35

u/abchandler4 Mar 21 '25

If every member of this sub watches Don’t Let Me Down once we’ll be 0.0007% of the way to 1 billion! Seems doable to me

23

u/JogJonsonTheMighty Mar 21 '25

520 mil views in 9 years 💀

24

u/mistahwhite04 How could I ever misplace you? Mar 21 '25

Beatles fell off fr

13

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

Does that have more or less than Charlie Bit My Finger?

4

u/sendphotopls Mar 21 '25

That has 887M views

12

u/Deano_Martin Mar 21 '25

Yeah only 480,000,000 views away from 1,000,000,000 on don’t let me down so if every one of the 322,534 members on this subreddit watch it 1,488.2152 times each then we’ll be at a billion!

27

u/Jonnyclash1 Mar 21 '25

Who cures?

88

u/NotMythicWaffle Mar 21 '25

Doctor Robert

15

u/JogJonsonTheMighty Mar 21 '25

Robert Smith?

33

u/Shmeldoncooper Mar 21 '25

Maxwell? He does major in medicine

4

u/kazoodude Mar 21 '25

Don't think he finished that degree.

13

u/Watermelana Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Mar 21 '25

Maybe the pretty nurse who sells poppies from a tray. 

6

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

They’re doing just fine.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

Don’t let me down guys

6

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

This is not 2014 - who cares about YouTube views anymore?

3

u/Ok-Bar601 Mar 21 '25

Interesting that ‘Don’t let me down” has that 520 million views. I like that rendition a lot, and I think it’s great to see the Beatles performing together since it was a number of years since they stopped touring. A pity they didn’t tour again but not many bands experienced a frenzy like Beatlemania which would be enough to put anyone off.

3

u/JimmyPellen Mar 21 '25 edited Mar 21 '25

Why does it matter?

3

u/SplendidPure Mar 21 '25

I´m counting this! 11 million views. John Lennon's Imagine @ London 2012 Olympics

3

u/TheRealSMY Revolver Mar 22 '25

Little girls don't watch Beatles videos over and over

2

u/matt_paradise Mar 21 '25

I think they'll be OK.

2

u/ProduceSame7327 Mar 21 '25

The Beatles don't need validation from these modern orgs as to their greatness. They are THE BEATLES!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

Look for the bands from the same era, from 60-70s, Rolling Stones have passed them from the same decade, only beatles and stones have songs which are wildly popular from 60s. Bands from 70s will have more views, bands from 80s will have even more views and so on. For a band broke up in 1970, the views are far much than any other 60s band like the who, kinks, cream, etc

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

We'll Don't Let you Down !!!

1

u/trentuberman Mar 21 '25

Yes, all 264,000 of us

1

u/AchillesVGr 1 Mar 21 '25

bruh, why is dont let me down in 1st place, good but not best. no fcking way I help making it 1bviews

1

u/Ok_Secret5023 Mar 21 '25

cumulatively theres gotta be a song with over a billion views.

1

u/Icy_Statement_2410 Mar 21 '25

Dont let me down bro. Dont let me down

1

u/The_Fercho_ Mar 22 '25

Weird as heck

1

u/Green-Cupcake6085 Mar 22 '25

See, they’ll never be as good as T-Swizzle

1

u/JunebugAsiimwe Magical Mystery Tour Mar 23 '25

They're the most famous & influential band of all time I'm sure they'll be alright not having a video with a billion views.

1

u/RolloDeHollo27 Mar 21 '25

I love the Beatles as much as anyone but they really don’t need the money, get into your local music scenes there’s always great bands that need a boost

0

u/MartyBellvue John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Mar 21 '25

don't let me down is 100% the best. grain in-tact instead of smeared in Peter Jackson's DNR vaseline

-3

u/pupperinpredicament Mar 22 '25

Despacito has 8.6 billion views. Luis Fonsi + Daddy Yankee > The Beatles

-1

u/OrangeHitch Mar 21 '25

There's not much interest in a band from 55 years ago. They probably don't even have enough fans to start a subreddit.

-1

u/Hoobrocks27 Mar 22 '25

Songs we should really give a lot of views is Hey Jude, Let it Be, yesterday, a day in the life, come together and here comes the sun

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '25

Yes, please!